BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I’ve been Googled.

Of course, that probably isn’t news to anyone. In fact, some of you reading this very blog post may well have arrived here courtesy of a Google search… Or Yahoo… Or MSN Live… Or any one of countless other Internet “search engines.”

I bring up Google, in particular, because it seems to be one of the more popular search pages out there. And, why shouldn’t they be? After all, they have all the money… Well, them and Bill Gates, but that last bit just goes without saying.

But, in this case, I haven’t just been Googled. I’ve been Googleified. In case you are wondering exactly what Googleify is, it’s my own special word. It is a combination of Google, from the colloquial Google, trademark for a search engine, and mystify, from the French mistifier, from mystère mystery, from Latin mysterium, to bewilder.

Yeah… Google has gone and mystified me. Or, as I like to say, Googleified. (Soon, I’ll be adding a petition for you all to sign. Maybe we can get Webster to add it to the lexicon… But, that’s a different chicken…)

The thing here is, and I have mentioned this before, WordPress tracks incoming traffic to this blog. In doing so, it logs all manner of cool stuff. Things like, IP addresses, country of origin, search phrases, and referring pages. Well, it isn’t very surprising that quite a bit of the incoming traffic to Brainpan Leakage comes from Google. Sure, there is plenty of traffic from other search engines, and there is also a good share from folks who arrive via notification emails, Twitter, and the like. But, where Internet searches are concerned, the overwhelming majority of the visitors arrive here courtesy of the Big Multicolored G.

So, I am sure you are now wondering why in the hell there is a picture of a provocatively clad woman astride a broomstick embedded on the left. Well, believe it or not, it isn’t a result of my “I Can Haz Blog?” post back in February. What I mean is, I’m not just sticking it in here to generate traffic, besides which, she’s not naked and it is a pretty common picture, so I doubt it would draw any visitors in the first place. And, no, Virginia, it’s not just so I can have something pretty to look at. If that were the case, she would be a redhead and look just like E K… Yes, I’m a little single minded in that respect. And no, E K doesn’t have that outfit… Well, actually she has something really, really close, but it’s not exact. Actually, it’s much better… So there…

But, on with the blog… Believe it or not, there is actually a salient point behind the picture. Well… It’s obvious to me since I’m the one writing the blog, but that’s not the point. What is the point, however, is that the picture actually has something to do with Google, in a silly, roundabout sort of way.

You see, when the WordPress plugin that tracks incoming traffic tells me how people arrived at my site, it actually extracts a list of the search words used. As you already know, these search words are matched to content, description text, and meta-keywords, on an indexed site, which is how Google, and other search engines for that matter, provide you with a list of websites. But, enough techie talk…

As you would rightfully surmise, there is the laundry list of obvious search parameters that land folks here at Brainpan Leakage. Things like…

• Sellars
• Brainpan
• Rowan Gant
• Paranormal Mystery
• And so on…

There are quite a few others. Some of them obscure, some not so much. Usually they make at least a little bit of sense… Such as “Erma Bombeck.” After all, I wrote a blog entry about one of her columns, so it isn’t really all that surprising that a search of her name would lead you here at some point. However, as I was perusing the the list the other day I ran across one that gave me pause…

“witches with big tits”

… Obviously we had someone here who was a boob man… Or woman… I’m not about to discriminate. And, by the same token this individual apparently had a fetish for Witches, or more likely if I were to place a bet on it, the colloquial “Witch Costume” sex fantasy sort of thing… I mean, let’s face it, even I still get a bit of a tingle from the adolescent memories of Elizabeth Montgomery in her Witchy garb…

Now, I have to admit, upon seeing this search phrase I assumed there had to be some kind of mistake. After all, a search like that should probably have landed this person at www.dorothymorrison.com.

Oh, chill out… Dorothy and I are like siblings and we pick at each other like this all the time. You folks know that… Not to mention that she makes plenty of her own jokes about her chest. Rumor has it she slings lightning bolts from her tits, but I’ve yet to see this myself, and I’ve been on tour with her more times than I could count, even if I took off my shoes and socks. So, if you ask me, I think that whole lightning thing is just a PR gimmick…

But, back to this particular Googleification leading someone to Brainpan Leakage…

After ruminating a bit, I thought maybe the phrase in question might have something to do with the op-ed entry I wrote about Facebook and the breast-feeding pictures issue. But, after going back and having a look, I didn’t find a direct mention of “big tits” in there… Not even “small tits”… Boobs, yes. Tits, no… And, definitely no mention of witches…

So, back to the drawing board I went…

Well, it took me some time, but I finally sussed it out. Seems Google had indexed the page containing the sample chapter from Never Burn A Witch, and in that particular sample was the scene where the old bum was singing his ditty about the ample-chested weather girl. All three of the primary search words from the phrase, (we aren’t counting with), were there on that page. And, if you want to count “with” anyway, it was there too.

Simple enough. Mystery solved. For a moment, I was no longer Googleified…

However, that didn’t last long. You see, I thought maybe I would look into figuring out some of the other strange search tags that brought visitors to Brainpan Leakage. It wasn’t long before I was “Google Eyed” and had a headache… If any of you would like to help, I’m still looking for connection to the following…

• R?zus p?rti?a apraksts
• ????????? ??
• jak przej?? gr? rattle and clank
• pokrútené ?revá u detí
• syntymäpäivä kortti

Ya’know… On second thought, don’t worry about it.

I think I’ll just go look at that sexy witch picture… Better yet, I’ll just go look at E K. Maybe if I’m really convincing, I can get her to wear her pointy hat and babe on a broomstick outfit…

More to come…

Murv

…Or, Erma Bombeck revisited. Take your pick…

“At Wit’s End” was the title of Ms. Bombeck’s column. Or, at least, one incarnation of it. When I first started reading it in syndication it was simply titled “Erma Bombeck”.

If you are unfamiliar with this woman and her legacy, she was a humorist and writer who, to my great sadness, left us back in 1996. However, I will spare you a recounting of all the details of her career, because you can get them simply by clicking on her name since I linked it to the ErmaMuseum, which is a site celebrating her life and prose.

So, why do I bring up a long dead humorist? Well, primarily because of all those dominos I’ve been going on about as of late. You see, their sharp edges keep generating more and more leaks in my brainpan. In a recent blog, “BBC – Bureau of Blog Content” (Sunday, Jan 18, 2009) Ms. Bombeck’s name came up in relation to my rambling.

Well, as it happens, I was an avid fan of her writing. (I still am, because I haven’t yet read it all). I could easily relate to her dry humor, her take on life, and her general perspective on all that was. In short, her columns, books, and prose spoke to me.

I never had the opportunity to meet the woman, nor did anyone in my family. At least not that I am aware. And, when they were each asked about it, the reply from all was that not a one had ever so much as contacted her, much less met her.

So, why would I ask such an odd question as that? Trust me, there’s a reason I interrogated my family about Ms. Bombeck.

It all started because of another little something in her column that made me a fan. Actually, it was something contained in a particular column, and I first saw it in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in 1976.

Yes, 1976. The bicentennial. Fancy quarters. Red, white, and blue. Biggest 4th of July celebration to date. Yes, that 1976…

The thing that stuck out about this column were the names – not ALL of them – but those of the two major players in the story. I will let you see for yourself. There are two jpg’s of the column below. One is in its original state, as I found it when going through my father’s personal effects after his death. The other is brightened, contrasted, and enhanced via my old pal Photoshop, in hopes that it will make it easier to read after all the years it spent tucked away in a wallet.

Original

Enhanced

Notes:

1. In the left hand column, the sentence below the one that ends “…four weeks to” reads: get it fixed. You just can’t get people to…
2. In the right hand column, the sentence below the one that ends “Is the ceiling a…” reads: composition? I’ve always suspected the

(I did the above as notes because I didn’t want to risk trying to flatten out the folds in this extremely brittle piece of paper)

Now, I certainly realize the humor is dry, acerbic, and even a bit morose in some respects. But, it is still funny. On top of that, I am also well aware that the humor is somewhat dated. When I showed it to EK, though she found it amusing, her initial comment was something to the effect of, “You can certainly tell it was from a different era. She’s having a drink before she takes him to the hospital.“

While that little tidbit is certainly part of the humor, it also speaks to an era where DUI’s weren’t feared as they are today (and rightly so)…

I suspect that by now you have all picked up on at least part of what struck me with this particular column. Of course, it is the surname of the two primary characters in this story, that being Sellars. Sellars with an A, not with an E. The lesser common spelling. Sellars just like M. R. Sellars.

Now, some of you may be well aware of my full name – Murvel Russell Sellars, Jr.  When I was a kid everyone called me Rusty. I’ve mentioned that in other blogs. And, my father was known as Russell. Just like, Russell in the column.

But, if that isn’t enough by itself, the real kicker is the “primary” primary character, his wife. Yes, Virginia, believe it or not, my mother’s name was Sonja.

Sonja with a J. Not with a Y, not with an I.

It was spelled with a J, just like the Sonja in the column.

I’m dead serious. I can prove it too, though I’m not going to post copies of birth and death certificates to this blog…

In any event, Sonja and Russell Sellars, my parents, were unwittingly the stars of an Erma Bombeck column.

For the record, my father never fell through the ceiling. I do seem to recall, however, that he put his foot through a rotten spot on the roof when it was being re-shingled.

I guess that was close enough for Erma, even if it was fiction that mirrored a tidbit of truth…

Oh, and BTW, today would have been my mother’s 67th birthday. Sadly, she left us in 1987, well before Erma. Still, I like to think they managed to hook up for a drink over there on the other side, and have a laugh about it all…

More to come…

Murv